Re: S3-backed amis?

[Jean-Yves Migeon <jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost>]

On Sun, 6 Mar 2011 22:46:04 -0500, Jan Schaumann 
<jschauma%netmeister.org@localhost> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've been toying around NetBSD/EC2 thanks to the very excellent
> instructions provided at http://wiki.netbsd.org/amazon_ec2/ (thanks,
> jym@!).  I noticed that all the examples there use EBS for storage 
> and
> image creation.  Is there a reason NetBSD ami's couldn't be created
> using S3 backed storage
>
> (http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/index.html?creating-an-ami.html)?

Yep, multiple reasons:
- S3 cannot be used to back t1.micro instances.
- uploading images to S3 requires bundling, as done by 
misc/ec2-ami-tools (yes, it's distinct from ec2-api-tools). While I 
imported the AMI tools, and added NetBSD support inside, I preferred to 
go the EBS route, which is easier to rollback in case of errors (thanks 
to snapshots).

> Also, I created amd64 images and briefly tested them on m1.large and
> m1.xlarge instances -- of course they don't see the additional CPUs, 
> but
> they still seemed to work.  Perhaps we should mention this?

No reason they should not :) You are paying extra cash for unused CPUs 
though, and hum, well, until MP support is ready...

(please note, also, that I did not post the announcement yet -- I have 
to write one down, and get board/core approval, should be done this 
week)

> Finally, I tried to build an i386 AMI for the m1.small instance, but
> somehow that never appeared to boot up.  Is there a known limitation 
> or
> did I just mess up?

32 bits EC2 requires PAE support, and used to work some months ago. 
Amazon modified something recently in their hypervisor, and, although 
the kernel does boot up, it will panic() when exec'ing init(8). That's 
something I am currently investigating.

--
Jean-Yves Migeon
jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost